LO
Airline pilot — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Commercial Pilots · Airfield Operations Specialists · Aircraft Service Attendants · Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels · Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians · Aviation Inspectors · Locomotive Engineers · First-Line Supervisors of Passenger Attendants
In the official classification#
Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers
Fit with this page: same job
Job Zone 4: considerable preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 53-2011.00 (Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Operation and ControlExtremely important
- Operations MonitoringExtremely important
- Judgment and Decision MakingVery important
- Time ManagementVery important
- CoordinationVery important
- Complex Problem SolvingVery important
- Social PerceptivenessImportant
- Systems AnalysisImportant
Knowledge
- TransportationExtremely important
- English LanguageVery important
- Public Safety and SecurityVery important
- MechanicalVery important
- GeographyVery important
- MathematicsImportant
Work activities
- Identifying Objects, Actions, and EventsExtremely important
- Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or MaterialsExtremely important
- Making Decisions and Solving ProblemsExtremely important
- Monitoring Processes, Materials, or SurroundingsExtremely important
- Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with StandardsExtremely important
- Getting InformationExtremely important
Abilities
- Response OrientationExtremely important
- Problem SensitivityExtremely important
- Control PrecisionExtremely important
- Reaction TimeVery important
- Near VisionVery important
- Far VisionVery important
Essential skills
- Active ListeningVery important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
- MonitoringVery important
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
- SpeakingVery important
Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 6 task judgements are for: 3 backed by a verified event, 3 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Four kinds of source, and each block says which: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.